One For My Honey

A box packed with heartbeats and kisses and some things that are better left unsaid, you would have guessed right if you were to see it - our little gifts we bought for each other, our photos, our memories; you and me: I don't need any of these. If I remember you, I remember you by heart. Pictures don't mean a thing because I have something that is worth a million times more than just our smiles captured in shots and motions. We had love, and that's enough. Love is always enough. Be it just a second, or even, just a nano-second, it already made me feel like I had the whole world. And guess what, these moments were the best moments I've ever had in my life.

But good things don't last long. Good things fall apart. I've known it all along. I knew we wouldn't be able to make it through. Do you remember that night at the park? And how I cried like a six-year-old on the swing? I've been wanting to say sorry for soaking your shirt with tears. That night - I would never forget. I took all of you in - Your sweet aroma, the last scent of Summer; Your smile, the last Cresent that lit up the night sky; Your velvet touch, the last memory of us - I took all of you in because I knew it was going to be the very last of us. Nothing lasts but what I took from you that night, it would last for ever. Still, good things fall apart:

So better things can come together.

I remember being the sullen me when I had lost you, for the second time, after Christmas. I had both my knees scraped and bruised from praying too much for you to come back. Things were dreadful, too, I distanced myself from my friends because I would get shy and even, ashamed, to talk about you - why haven't they got sick of me being always glum? I had thought about that. I guess they had grown tired of me but they just sucked it up and didn't show it, you know; but before long, I stopped having your name included in my conversations and when they asked me about you, I'd refuse to say anything about it.

I did let out my emotions once in a while, though, whenever I was drunk enough to forget my name, I would start spilling my feelings out. And like all the other drunk nights, the only place I would crash at was my friend's, he would never get tired of me being a whiny little b****. It wasn't the first time that I showed up at his door in the middle of the night, with my face hidden behind both my hands, weeping. The long howl from my burned lungs echoed along the hallway outside his apartment, but lasted only too long until he opened his gate and let me go inside. I curled up like a pathetic kidney bean in bed to feel less lonely but the nothingness wouldn't go away. He held me in his arms and hushed, did my thoughts scream so loud it kept him up all night? "Don't think about it," he whispered, "I am here." His fingers traced where my tears had run along, it was his way of telling me to stay strong. We started pillow talking but the alcohol in my system drove me into the darkest place they called lucid dreams. I was half asleep but I knew I was conscious because I could still feel the fresh wound in my chest.

He woke me up the next morning and began telling me stories about this girl, Margarita. He talked about how she paid for her own education back in the days and how she worked her way up from being a waitress to a model. She isn't just an average girl, you see, she is an independent, strong woman and she is who I want to grow up to be. The reason why she grew to be a fearless fighter wasn't that she had a perfect life, no. She had been suffering, too, in her own ways; but she managed to pull through because she didn't live in the past, and she wasn't living in the future. She was living then, in that moment where she was and she lived to the fullest. To put it in other words, she knew well enough how to face a difficult situation with the right attitude. She knew so much about living in the moment.

My best friend, Vince, worked as a nurse at a private hospital. She would tell me stories about the people she met everyday and there was this one story that was quite remarkable. A woman came into the ward some days before Vince was transferred and placed to look after the patients on that floor. She was diagnosed with lung cancer, that woman, and she had a hard time breathing. One day, they had to cut her throat open to give her oxygen because her trachea didn't work anymore. Vince had to help clean her wound everyday and it had lasted for a week because then, she couldn't make it to the eighth day. Vince was the one who had to switch off the patient's oxygen supply - although prone to witness patients come and go, it particularly bothered Vince that time because that woman was the only patient who fought till the last minute on her deathbed. She tried to use her nose to suck in as much oxygen as she could, despite the fact that it did not work at all. What had been on her mind the whole time? I asked Vince. "I have no idea but if I were her, I would breathe hard too, instead of giving in to Death. It's what you can make the best of at that very last moment."

If I were still my eighteen-year-old self, before I was completely broken, I would let Death take me. But this is me now, all grown up and matured; I will make the best of every moment I have. I don't have what I'm in control of but I have that moment and I am who makes the moment worth living.

I've learned to not look at the bigger picture of life because how it appears doesn't matter. My life may be a misfortune, an unlucky case, a rotten apple that had fallen too far from the tree; but that doesn't matter. What matters is each moment that makes up the whole picture. Moments like taking walks in the park after dinner, moments like sitting at the pier listening to the sound of the sea waves crashing against the rocks, moments like catching a stranger randomly smiling at me; be it just a nano-second, but moments as short as these are what I'll treasure now.

I took a walk with my sister last night from home to the bay just somewhere near. We walked to the pier through the park first. It was a very happy moment because I saw the flowers which I had never noticed before on each side of the road; even though not as good as the way you smell with the mixture of cigarettes and cologne, they smelled nice too. And then we had to walk further down the pier to pass by a bar in order to get to the bay. It was 11pm and the Christmas decorations at the bar lit up the street. They caught my eye like the way you did each time I saw you. I swear those moments last night were perfect and no jokes, I was very, very happy.

What I'm trying to say is, I no longer need you in order to be happy. In fact, I no longer need anybody to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm leaving you, or that I don't love you - I do. I love you a lot. A lot more than you can ever imagine. If I could take a bullet for you, I wouldn't hesitate to. But I don't need you in order to stay happy anymore. Each moment that is happening in my life: right here, right now - it is what makes my life worth living.

It is undeniable that, at times I'd still get upset about not having what we used to have and not being who we used to be when we were still together. But the sadness is no longer the same sadness from depression. It is a good sadness. It is only staying for a short while. It is productive, it is hopeful and beautiful.

Thank you, Matthias, for that. Thank you for always bringing out the best in me, even at the very last moment. You will always be my most special.

Last but not least, I'm finally willing to put an end to the old us: the old us that depended on "reliance" for love, the old us that struggled to grow up but couldn't afford to admit that growing up also means to grow apart. But thank god we did. I don't know about you but I, myself, is a better person now - stronger, cleverer, happier; more mature, more optimistic, more beautiful. And the best part is, I know I'll be much more than this, so much better than this. Thank you, honey. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love you, I love you, I love you; I love you, and I always will.

All these moments that I've just spent writing this - they are all worthwhile and they are the moments that made me so happy: right here, right now - and trust me, none of these moments was a waste.

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